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“—we all saw it back in Stratford.She almost got us killed!And now she would do it again, only in a fruitless quest to reach an heir who cannot even shift, or else she would have already done as we are attempting!This is folly!”

“She also rescued the leader of the light mages and a host of others while you cowered in the dark,” Enid said, because those two really did not get on.

“I was told to stay behind,” Æsubrand hissed.“To wait like a woman—”

“Careful,” Bodil murmured.

“—as there were not enough cloaks for everyone, and the witches would not stay back!They did not trust her, and I am beginning to see why!”

“You see nothing,” Enid said, and would have said more, but he cut her off.

“And you—who are you to have a say in any of this?You’re no warrior!You should be in the kitchens—”

“I’mno warrior?”An incandescent half-mermaid was across the bed and in his face faster than any of us could blink.“I wasthere, following them through the crowd!”

“What?”I asked again because, apparently, I’d missed more than I realized.

“She wouldn’t stay put,” Bodil said.“And it was easier to see through her eyes than yours.That cloak interfered with my link to you.”

“So you sent her in there alone?”

“I sent her nowhere.She didn’t ask,” Bodil said dryly.“I merely used the opportunity—”

“The necessity, you mean,” Æsubrand said, gesturing at me.“Or she would have left us all behind!”

But Enid wasn’t done, and she bristled whenever he opened his mouth.“I wasthere,” she repeated.“When the blood rained down, and the bones cracked like thunder, and the odds were impossible, just impossible, against us!”She turned shining eyes on me that I didn’t deserve, but Enid was lost in outraged admiration and didn’t notice.“I was there when she braved it all and got them out, leading us to victory—”

“Victory?”Æsubrand gestured savagely around.“Does this look like victory to you?”

“It’s a step—”

“Yes, farther away from her goal, and thank the gods for it—”

“What gods?”she snarled.“The ones trying to kill us?The ones who destroyed your world and are doing the same thing here?Who would end our lives without a thought because we don’t matter to them, never did, never will?”

She turned on me again, and her face told me everything about who Enid had chosen to worship instead, which was making me feel sick and squirmy and wrong.“I’ll put my trust in Cassie.She’s gotten us this far!”

“Yes, into another hole in the ground, only at least in this one, they have some sense!”Æsubrand said and savagely ate lamb at us.

I looked from him to Bodil, partly to evade Enid’s going-to-be-disappointed-any-minute-now face and partly because Bodil had been eavesdropping on the Circle since we got here; I knew she had.Which meant that her info was likely better than whatever the haughty prince had been able to get out of the local boys.

“What exactly are they planning?”I asked.“They have to know those spells end in tragedy almost every single time.They’re the ones who made the laws against using them!”

“And for good reason, it seems,” she agreed.“They have been trying this strategy for decades whenever they amassed enough power.None of the mages who volunteered to make the attempt were heard from again.It is assumed that they did not survive the process.”

“Most don’t!”

“But Marsden thinks you will be different.You are Pythia, or you were.You have made many such jumps before—”

“With the Pythian power, which I don’t currently have!”

—and while he heard from Mage Pritkin that your power no longer works, you still know the Pythian spells.You don’t have to use the dangerous ones as they have been.He thinks if they provide you with enough energy, you can make it—”

“Do they have any idea how much power the Pythian spells take?”I demanded.“It’s a lot more than anything they’re familiar with!And provide me how?Did they get their stores out of HQ?”

“No, there was no time, as you saw.”

Bodil’s serene, Nefertiti-on-tranks vibe didn’t change, yet something did.I could see it on the faces of those around me, feel it in my gut, almost taste it in the air suddenly, like an electric tingle.Whatever Jonas was planning, I wasn’t going to like it.